The cut is associated with the annual charges that business must pay for placing medical devices on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG), the TGA’s list of therapeutic products that can lawfully be supplied in Australia.

Over the past five years ADIA has been critical of the TGA’s approach to setting its fees and charges which have seen many businesses face a significant increase in compliance costs.

“In 2015, the TGA changed the way that it levied annual charges for many products on the ARTG. An independent assessment undertaken by Deloitte Access Economics found that these changes resulted in an average 34 per cent increase in regulatory compliance for businesses in the dental industry. That’s what’s made the issue of TGA’s fees and charges a critical issue for the dental industry,” Williams said.

Beyond the 2015 changes, ADIA has also been critical of the standard method used to increase the TGA’s annual charges, this being the average of the Consumer Price Index and the Wage Price Index which effectively guaranteed increased income for the regulator.

“It’s been ADIA’s contention that the standard method of calculating the TGA’s fees in past year’s had little regard for the regulator’s actual costs and the impost this placed on business,” Williams said. There is the perception that with a guaranteed regular increase in fees the regulator simply grew to match the size of its budget.”

Reducing the compliance costs that the dental industry faces has been an advocacy priority for ADIA, and the TGA’s budget setting process has been an ongoing aspect to this work.